Applemorphic

BusinessWeek online has a new special report up called “The Apple Economy.” Articles cover its influence on other companies, its success in corporate markets, and its relationships with partners, among others.

Ever since Mac OS X was first released to consumers as a beta in 2000 (is that right? I’m surprised Wikipedia’s history section of its Mac OS X entry doesn’t included such a date, but I distinctly remember running it while I was working at VarsityBooks.com in the Spring of 2000), there have been rumors of a so-called “lite” version of the operating system that could be used on a new-century version of the Newton and other devices. Speculation about a limited version of Mac OS X has been increasing of late, particularly with regard to iTV and the rumored Apple mobile phone (nee, iPhone).

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Dan Benjamin at Hivelogic makes his picks, and he sees things similar to the way I do, at least with regards to Macworld 2007 predictions.

Macworld magazine put together an impressive panel and asked for their predictions for Apple in 2007. The panel includes Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times, and John Moltz of Crazy Apple Rumors Site, along with Christopher Breen and Adam Engst, both of Macworld. These are all long-time followers of Apple who are usually on the money with their reporting and/or analysis. Most of the predictions are quite level-headed, and this makes for an interesting read. Most interesting will be the follow-up article next year to see how everyone did with their predictions, as Macworld did for a smaller set of authors at the conclusion of this article.

“Sources report to Thinksecret.com that Apple’s iPhone is on track to be released in January, this after the company faced numerous difficult technological and engineering hurdles. The phone is said to feature a 3 megapixel camera, 2.2 inch display and complete iTunes integration.” read more | digg story

I hope this is true. Like I was with the original iPod, I’ll be one of the first to buy an iPhone. But Apple has some serious strategic, technical and design issues to address before successfully launching the long-rumored and much-anticipated Apple mobile phone. In many respects, launching a phone is significantly more complex than launching an MP3 player. Here are a few of the hurdles Apple must get past. Read the rest of this entry »